Today I went to the Groningen Challenger. I am not going to type an entire report, but these are matches I saw a part of and I also watched some practising. So if you want to know about a match or a player, just ask me and I will gladly answer:

- Rotterdam, five days
- Scheveningen, two days
- Amersfoort, one day
- Rosmalen, five days
- Wimbledon, one day
- Luxembourg, one day
- Hasselt, two days

And then the last tournament this year for me, Groningen, provides me with the most interesting match of the year by far: Igor Kunitsyn RUS - Davide Sanguinetti ITA (5). I wanted to watch Davide, cause I had never seen him in real life and well, I wasn't disappointed!

I found that he played very solid, but not very well or very motivated. And his movement was a bit off. Kunitsyn had a very awkward, somewhat scared expression on his face, but he always has that He played good attacking tennis from the baseline. He has got some potential, but he needs to make fewer mistakes. He is quite a cool player too, in both meanings of the word.

Davide was quite fired up. Let me first say that the umpires, linesmen and ballboys are all of pathetic quality here in Groningen. The umpire has to tell the ballboys all the time to change positions, roll the balls to the other side. Once, Azzaro even started waving at one of the ball kids (who were too young, IMO; usually they use older children), because it took forever to get a ball (but that was a diff. match, obviously). Some linesmen didn't change position either when they were supposed to So the umpire had to say something again. And the chair umpires themselves didn't make too many good overrules and were biased when it comes to handing out code violations.

Combine this with Davide's lack of form and his lousy play in the match and his personality, you have fireworks. He was constantly arguing with the chair umpire about calls that were wrong or at least to his disadvantage. In 90% of the cases he was right too. But he never got his share. There was one particular lineswoman that was frequently bothering him. When she walked away, he pretended hitting her with the racquet. It was quite funny for me to see, but it was also a bit scary

He threw his racquet around a LOT. I think there are clear marks on the court. I am also surprised it didn't break And he hit the balls everywhere. But this is not what he got a code violation for. In his arguments with the chair umpire, he said these things:

"What the fuck are you doing here?"
"You should look at the line, not me"
"It's like Back to the Futures here"

I think he also said something along the lines of "What do you there? Jerking off or something?" But I cannot be 100% sure, though I would bet money on him using the words 'jerking off'.

Still, he had a match point, but he didn't take advantage of it. He lost 6-3 3-6 6-7 in a very exciting and entertaining match (like I said, the most entertaining and interesting match of the year for me). After the match, he refused to shake the umpire's hand, threw the towel in his direction and kept raging on and making gestures like 'fuck off, you shouldn't be here'. He also did this to the particular lineswoman. And he complained very loudly, kicking stuff to supervisor Carl Baldwin (I think that's the name). And when he entered the players' lockerrooms, he hit it very loudly too.

I always thought he was a funny, kind, grey man.. How wrong could I have been Although it was extremely funny to me, I overheard some ballboys talking that they really were scared for their lives with him tossing his racquet around in every direction

Imagine.. He only got ONE code violation (unsportmanship combat or something)

Igor was angry with himself sometimes, but he behaved very calmly But I don't know how it affected him mentally. But he didn't really express frustration with Sanguinetti, so that is good He sure can focus

That's good to hear. I am not an enormous Kunitsyn fan or anything, but I like when people keep their cool on the court. Especially in times when they aren't playing their best, and even lose to someone they shouldn't.

Kunitsyn had a very awkward, somewhat scared expression on his face, but he always has that

He's the sweetest eh! I'll add a pic to this, so people can see how he looks even when he's off the court. He does have a "concerned" sort of expression.

Quote:

"It's like Back to the Futures here"

Hilarious!

Quote:

I always thought he was a funny, kind, grey man.. How wrong could I have been

Don't worry too much Martijn, I always saw pictures of him, and thought he looked like the sweetest guy, only to find out (this year) that he was an absolute arsehole on court. Maybe he's a decent guy off the court, I don't know. I'm never going to give him the chance to impress me. I'm so glad Igor won this match, he would have felt like absolute crap if he'd lost. Looking at Davide's appalling behaviour is probably a good example for him, to show how 'not' to let things get to you so much . what a :retard:. Great work Igor

Hehe, that must have been entertaining. If you have time I'd like a few words about how Kendrick was doing. Thanks.

Robert Kendrick

OK He started off so incredibly poor. I was really interested in seeing him play, but he made so many mistakes time after time. Leonardo Azzaro (he's got puppy eyes ) was very stable, making some good winners and hardly any errors, but most of the time the points were just given to him. Some of those unforced errors Robert made were really

It was 6-2 3-0 and then 6-2 4-1 for Azzaro. But Kendrick turned it around All of a sudden he stopped hitting unforced errors and his shots worked. Azzaro became more frustrated (not as frustrated as Kendrick was before; he got a warning for ball abuse) and never won another game. Not that Kendrick was playing spectacular tennis all of a sudden; he just made fewer unforced errors and Azzaro was less stable.

I took a picture of him after the match, but you will have to wait a loooooooong time for it It's on the film, which in not full yet